By Kris Smith
The Stars travel to Edinburgh on Sunday to face the Capitals in their fourth Gardiner Conference game this year with Dundee still looking for their first points in the all-Scottish conference.
This is the sixth meeting between Dundee and the Caps with Dmitri Khristich’s side claiming four victories against the Stars this season, Dundee have yet to win a game at Murrayfield Ice Rink this year’s campaign.
The Caps have lost four players this month in addition to their own suspension and injury troubles that have pinned them to the foot of the league standings. Marek Tvrdon, Julius Nyqvist, Duncan Spiers and Taylor Stefishen were the four Caps that departed in November.
Both teams suffered heavy defeats last night as the Caps went down 8-2 to the Braehead Clan in Glasgow and the Stars were shutout 5-0 on home ice by the Guildford Flames. Edinburgh are rooted to the foot of the league table with just 4 points from 16 games meanwhile Dundee have 13 points from 16 games and are ranked one above the Caps.
Meanwhile the Stars are fourth in the Gardiner Conference standings and can get their first points to draw level with the Caps after losing their first three conference games. The Caps have only two points from 5 games after defeating Dundee in each sides first conference game.
The last meeting between the sides was in the Challenge Cup when the Caps got a 2-1 victory at Murrayfield but it was Dundee who finished third in Group A and progressed with Belfast Giants and Fife Flyers into the Quarter-Finals. Gabriel Lévesque got the Stars only goal and it was Dylan Anderson’s goal that won the two points for Dmitri Khristich’s side after Sergei Banashkov had put the home side ahead.
Talking to Stars TV last night Omar Pacha discussed what went wrong for his side against the Flames, he said: “We worked hard and we just couldn’t execute, the passing was off but when you lose your best defenceman before the game it is never easy.
“Stadel is such an important part of the team especially with all the injuries we have, then losing Fox too tonight, they are two key guys.
“It is sometimes really hard to come back and it was frustrating as a coach. If you are short benched you have to play the right way, we weren’t physical and offensively we turned over the puck but it was a bad start and after that our execution wasn’t very good.
“We missed our chances and didn’t create enough and defensively we were soft, it was uncharacteristic of this team.”
Looking ahead to tonight he added: “Tomorrow is an important game and we have to be ready for it, we won against Cardiff and Belfast while short.
“I am confident we will bounce back and if we play how we played last week then we will give ourselves a chance to win.”
“Tomorrow is a must win if we want to get back on track.”
Tonight’s game will face-off at 6pm in Murrayfield Ice Rink.
